"Why has American politics fallen into such a state of horrible dysfunction? Can it ever be fixed? These are the questions that motivate Michael Tomasky's deeply original examination into the origins of our hopelessly polarized nation. [Political commentator] Tomasky ranges across centuries and disciplines to show how America has almost always had two dominant parties that are existentially, and often violently, opposed. When he turns to our current...

"Why is our society in the fix it is in? Is it all Donald Trump's fault? Well, no. As often observed, Trump is a symptom of a virus that has been incubating for at least 50 years and maybe 150. But not often observed is where the virus is imbedded: in the psychic core of identity. This book explores the primacy of identity in American society and makes the argument that hyper-polarization was not only predictable but inevitable, based on such unlikely...

"At the end of his first inaugural address, delivered to a nation deeply divided and on the brink of civil war, Abraham Lincoln concluded, 'We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.' Lincoln's words ring true today, especially for a new generation raised on political discourse that consists of vitriolic social media and the echo chambers of polarized news media. Michael Austin combines American history, classical theories of democracy,...

"From one of the world's most celebrated moral philosophers comes a thorough examination of the current political crisis and recommendations for how to mend our divided country. For decades Martha C. Nussbaum has been an acclaimed scholar and humanist, earning dozens of honors for her books and essays. In The Monarchy of Fear she turns her attention to the current political crisis that has polarized American since the 2016 election. Although today's...

As national political fights are waged at the state level, democracy itself pays the price Over the past generation, the Democratic and Republican parties have each become nationally coordinated political teams. American political institutions, on the other hand, remain highly decentralized. Laboratories against Democracy shows how national political conflicts are increasingly flowing through the subnational institutions of state politics-with profound...

"From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States. Founding Partisans is a lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be. To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were an existential threat to republican virtues....